Pikassos - In English

Pikassos Ltd - The Centre of Excellence on Social Welfare in the regions of Kanta-Häme, Pirkanmaa and Satakunta is a network organization to provide cooperative structure for developing basic and specialised services within the social sector. We are part of the national network of 11 Centres of Excellence, from which one Centre is designed for the Swedish speaking population in Finland.

As a network organisation we are working closely together with the municipalities and providing forums for social welfare professionals and other partners. We get a permanent state financing. The function and responsibilities of the Centres of Excellence on Social Welfare are defined in the Act 1230/2001. The tasks are to secure:

Development and transfer of expertise needed in the social welfare sector

Development of basic services and guarantee advanced services that require special expertise

Promote regional and provincial cooperation and strengthen the connection between the practical work, research and education.

Our development projects originate from the requirements in the practical work and from the needs of the citizens. We share development results through network meetings and training sessions. We also provide tools and give consultation in the development of the documentation and evaluation. We coordinate different networks of social welfare professionals, education system researchers and professionals, not forgetting civic sector NGOs in the field.

Pikassos is a non-profit company (Ltd) and was founded in 2002. The shareholders are cities of Hämeenlinna, Tampere and Pori.

The key partners are the University of Tampere (School of Social Sciences and Humanities), Polytechnics: HAMK University of Applied Sciences, Satakunta University of Applied Sciences (SAMK), Tampere University of Applied Sciences (TAMK), Diaconia University of Applied Sciences (Diak-Pori) and social welfare NGOs together.